Sultana Daku’s story is hidden in layers of lore. The man who terrorized the United Provinces (Uttar Pradesh) in the 1920s was born in the Muslim bhantu clan of criminals. He was a dashing dacoit who named his horse Chetak (after Maharana Pratap’s horse) and operated on a code of honor. There are many tales of his sexual prowess, one of which even claims that an English girl fell madly in love with the notorious dacoit. He was the one who abducted a dancing girl named Phulkanwarn, who then went on to become Putli Bai. A pain in the side of the British, he was loved by the locals. There are stories of him looting the trains of the Raj and distributing the loot among the poor. He was captured by the British and sentenced to hanging. A young officer, Freddie Young, tried his hardest to have Sultana pardoned but to no avail. Sultana then asked Young to raise his son as a ‘sahib’; Young kept his word and sent the boy to England for his education. On 7 July, 1924, Sultana was sent to the gallows.
